Augustus Buchner, "the father of the German dactyl" and one of the most significant literary figures of the second quarter of the seventeenth century in Germany, was neither an extraordinarily talented poet nor a particularly prolific one. Most of his poems, whether in Latin or in German, were published only in pamphlets produced for particular occasions; unlike many of his contemporaries, he never put together a collected edition of his poetry. Even his Anleitung zur Deutschen Poeterey (Introduction to German Poetics, 1665), his claim to any lasting fame, was not published during his lifetime. Yet, as Joachim Rachel wrote in a literary satire shortly after Buchner's death, two lines of verse by Buchner outweighed entire books written by others. And aside from the Buch von der Deutschen Poeterey (Book of German Poetry, 1624), by Buchner's friend Martin Opitz, Buchner's treatise--which was widely distributed in manuscript form and was the basis...